What are economists really good for?...nothing but propaganda

[regent]

Economics is similar to history. Economists cannot experiment as do the natural sciences, they can generally tell us what happened and why they think it might happen again if all the economic components are in the same proportions and the conditions are exactly the same. Still, by using those methods we may have just escaped another Great Depression by studying the possible causes of the last. Come to think of it we haven't had another Great Depression for some years now and is that because of economists? Was Keynes right?

Keynes was right as long as government spending and revenue remained balanced over the long run. Instead, we finance deficit spending with long term debt that we will never be able to repay.

Keynes wasn't right about anything. He became popular with politicians and other sorts of ticks on the ass of society because he gave politicians an excuse to go on a spending binge.

Keynes seems to be the only answer to a recession or depression at this time, unless you have another solution. Maybe trickle-something is the answer?

 

[bripat9643]

Economics is similar to history. Economists cannot experiment as do the natural sciences, they can generally tell us what happened and why they think it might happen again if all the economic components are in the same proportions and the conditions are exactly the same. Still, by using those methods we may have just escaped another Great Depression by studying the possible causes of the last. Come to think of it we haven't had another Great Depression for some years now and is that because of economists? Was Keynes right?

Keynes was right as long as government spending and revenue remained balanced over the long run. Instead, we finance deficit spending with long term debt that we will never be able to repay.

Keynes wasn't right about anything. He became popular with politicians and other sorts of ticks on the ass of society because he gave politicians an excuse to go on a spending binge.

Keynes seems to be the only answer to a recession or depression at this time, unless you have another solution. Maybe trickle-something is the answer?

Keynes' "solution" didn't work. The depression lasted another 8 years after the election of FDR. Some would argue it lasted until the end of WW II since the only thing that kept employment low during the war was drafting 18 million men into the military.

 

[hipeter924]

Economics is similar to history. Economists cannot experiment as do the natural sciences, they can generally tell us what happened and why they think it might happen again if all the economic components are in the same proportions and the conditions are exactly the same. Still, by using those methods we may have just escaped another Great Depression by studying the possible causes of the last. Come to think of it we haven't had another Great Depression for some years now and is that because of economists? Was Keynes right?

Keynes was right as long as government spending and revenue remained balanced over the long run. Instead, we finance deficit spending with long term debt that we will never be able to repay.

Keynes wasn't right about anything. He became popular with politicians and other sorts of ticks on the ass of society because he gave politicians an excuse to go on a spending binge.

Keynes seems to be the only answer to a recession or depression at this time, unless you have another solution. Maybe trickle-something is the answer?

Think he wants to use a bucket, till his boat capsizes, then blame 'liberals' for giving him too big a bucket. BritPat is still fuming from when Hoover lost to FDR.

 

[bripat9643]

Economics is similar to history. Economists cannot experiment as do the natural sciences, they can generally tell us what happened and why they think it might happen again if all the economic components are in the same proportions and the conditions are exactly the same. Still, by using those methods we may have just escaped another Great Depression by studying the possible causes of the last. Come to think of it we haven't had another Great Depression for some years now and is that because of economists? Was Keynes right?

Keynes was right as long as government spending and revenue remained balanced over the long run. Instead, we finance deficit spending with long term debt that we will never be able to repay.

Keynes wasn't right about anything. He became popular with politicians and other sorts of ticks on the ass of society because he gave politicians an excuse to go on a spending binge.

Keynes seems to be the only answer to a recession or depression at this time, unless you have another solution. Maybe trickle-something is the answer?

Think he wants to use a bucket, till his boat capsizes, then blame 'liberals' for giving him too big a bucket. BritPat is still fuming from when Hoover lost to FDR.

You're just a jackass with no facts or logic to offer.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

- "Nothing in these abstract economic models actually works in the real world. It doesn’t matter how many footnotes they put in, or how many ways they tinker around the edges. The whole enterprise is totally rotten at the core: it has no relation to reality."
Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power, pp. 254-5

- You can also construct models which have no relation to reality. Some free-market economic models, for example, abstract away from significant factors, such as state intervention or the fact that capital is mobile and labor relatively immobile and so on. They actually take you farther away from the way the world works.

Noam Chomsky - The Golden Age Is in Us Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alexander Cockburn

Noam Chomsky about economic models Resources for Economics Learners and Students.

LOL!

Imagine the depths of a foolishness that cites Noam Chomsky, referring to free market capitalism as an abstract economic model.

ROFLMNAO!

You can NOT make that level of delusional crap up.​

 

[dcraelin]

- "Nothing in these abstract economic models actually works in the real world. It doesn’t matter how many footnotes they put in, or how many ways they tinker around the edges. The whole enterprise is totally rotten at the core: it has no relation to reality."
Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power, pp. 254-5

- You can also construct models which have no relation to reality. Some free-market economic models, for example, abstract away from significant factors, such as state intervention or the fact that capital is mobile and labor relatively immobile and so on. They actually take you farther away from the way the world works.

Noam Chomsky - The Golden Age Is in Us Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alexander Cockburn

Noam Chomsky about economic models Resources for Economics Learners and Students.

Noam Chomsky is nothing but a maoist propagandist himself.

well hes from the left...but I bet you can find rt-wingers that have the same opinion on economists

 

[hipeter924]

Economics is similar to history. Economists cannot experiment as do the natural sciences, they can generally tell us what happened and why they think it might happen again if all the economic components are in the same proportions and the conditions are exactly the same. Still, by using those methods we may have just escaped another Great Depression by studying the possible causes of the last. Come to think of it we haven't had another Great Depression for some years now and is that because of economists? Was Keynes right?

Keynes was right as long as government spending and revenue remained balanced over the long run. Instead, we finance deficit spending with long term debt that we will never be able to repay.

Keynes wasn't right about anything. He became popular with politicians and other sorts of ticks on the ass of society because he gave politicians an excuse to go on a spending binge.

Keynes seems to be the only answer to a recession or depression at this time, unless you have another solution. Maybe trickle-something is the answer?

Think he wants to use a bucket, till his boat capsizes, then blame 'liberals' for giving him too big a bucket. BritPat is still fuming from when Hoover lost to FDR.

You're just a jackass with no facts or logic to offer.

You're a fruit loop, in a recursive rage loop. Who obviously can't stop swearing.

 

[dcraelin]

- "Nothing in these abstract economic models actually works in the real world. It doesn’t matter how many footnotes they put in, or how many ways they tinker around the edges. The whole enterprise is totally rotten at the core: it has no relation to reality."
Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power, pp. 254-5

- You can also construct models which have no relation to reality. Some free-market economic models, for example, abstract away from significant factors, such as state intervention or the fact that capital is mobile and labor relatively immobile and so on. They actually take you farther away from the way the world works.

Noam Chomsky - The Golden Age Is in Us Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alexander Cockburn

Noam Chomsky about economic models Resources for Economics Learners and Students.

LOL!

Imagine the depths of a foolishness that cites Noam Chomsky, referring to free market capitalism as an abstract economic model.

ROFLMNAO!

You can NOT make that level of delusional crap up.​

Ever seen an advertisement saying 'Buy one get one free'?........ free is a term for selling

That said Im getting more at the supposed prediction powers of economists...not really criticizing the free market ideal, as is Chomsky in this particular passage.

 

[occupied]

The soft science of economics has been manipulated for political purposes to the point that it is practically meaningless. The Koch brothers and other very wealthy people have generously endowed several schools of economics provided the focus is on free market dogma rather than observation and empiricism. Were the field actually approached as a science there would be no philosophical component whatsoever. There is nothing that generates more raw data for study than human commerce and it has been for decades, there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

 

[Mac1958]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult (actually, pretty much impossible) in a dynamic global economy. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting short and long term political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

- "Nothing in these abstract economic models actually works in the real world. It doesn’t matter how many footnotes they put in, or how many ways they tinker around the edges. The whole enterprise is totally rotten at the core: it has no relation to reality."
Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power, pp. 254-5

- You can also construct models which have no relation to reality. Some free-market economic models, for example, abstract away from significant factors, such as state intervention or the fact that capital is mobile and labor relatively immobile and so on. They actually take you farther away from the way the world works.

Noam Chomsky - The Golden Age Is in Us Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alexander Cockburn

Noam Chomsky about economic models Resources for Economics Learners and Students.

LOL!

Imagine the depths of a foolishness that cites Noam Chomsky, referring to free market capitalism as an abstract economic model.

ROFLMNAO!

You can NOT make that level of delusional crap up.​

Ever seen an advertisement saying 'Buy one get one free'?........ free is a term for selling

That said Im getting more at the supposed prediction powers of economists...not really criticizing the free market ideal, as is Chomsky in this particular passage.

I get it...

I was just laughing about Chomsky being cited... 30 years hence his being consistently and roundly discredited.

 

[occupied]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

I understand that but the question of Trickle down VS Trickle up should have a much more definitive answer than it does and I believe it would if the trickle down champions were not wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

 

[Mac1958]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

I understand that but the question of Trickle down VS Trickle up should have a much more definitive answer than it does and I believe it would if the trickle down champions were not wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

Well, the problem with the up/down scenario is that it's binary, either/or, and that just isn't how economics and markets work.

Partisan politics pollutes and distorts every goddamn thing it touches, and this is a great example. This is far more complicated than up or down.

.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

I understand that but the question of Trickle down...

LOL! Funny stuff.

Socialism (OKA: Trickle-down Economics) wherein the Left confiscates the property of those who produced it, and trickles it back down to the lowest common denominator toward propping up their political power, is an invalid equation advanced by the intellectually less fortunate, who deceitfully offer such through fraudulent rationalizations, as a means to influence the ignorant.

Such notions are typical of dying cultures.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

I understand that but the question of Trickle down VS Trickle up should have a much more definitive answer than it does and I believe it would if the trickle down champions were not wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

Is that why the economy has been so slow?
The rich should be untaxed, but the top 10% pay 68% of Fed income taxes?

 

[occupied]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

I understand that but the question of Trickle down VS Trickle up should have a much more definitive answer than it does and I believe it would if the trickle down champions were not wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

Is that why the economy has been so slow?
The rich should be untaxed, but the top 10% pay 68% of Fed income taxes?

When all federal state and local taxes, fees, etc. are added together the working poor pay a large percentage of their income in taxes, no one gets off scot-free except the people who are adept at hiding income as the wealthy are.

 

[occupied]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

I understand that but the question of Trickle down...

LOL! Funny stuff.

Socialism (OKA: Trickle-down Economics) wherein the Left confiscates the property of those who produced it, and trickles it back down to the lowest common denominator toward propping up their political power, is an invalid equation advanced by the intellectually less fortunate, who deceitfully offer such through fraudulent rationalizations, as a means to influence the ignorant.

Such notions are typical of dying cultures.

Social programs keep wealthy necks from ending up in nooses, it's revolution insurance, besides, socialism for the rich is about as safe from budget cuts as defense spending. Gotta keep the investment class happy as they invest in China.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

I understand that but the question of Trickle down VS Trickle up should have a much more definitive answer than it does and I believe it would if the trickle down champions were not wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

Is that why the economy has been so slow?
The rich should be untaxed, but the top 10% pay 68% of Fed income taxes?

When all federal state and local taxes, fees, etc. are added together the working poor pay a large percentage of their income in taxes, no one gets off scot-free except the people who are adept at hiding income as the wealthy are.

Of course, the rich also pay those same taxes... on TOP of the enormous level percentage of income taxes they pay.

Now, of the two competing sets of ideas: The Ideological Left and the Philosophical Right, which one is it that had demanded those taxes and fees, which in large measure serve to keep the poor... POOR?

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

Social programs keep wealthy necks from ending up in nooses, ...

ROFLMNAO! Adorable...

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

...there ought to be a better grasp of what works and what doesn't by now rather than this silly ideological war between opposing philosophies.

There just isn't, though. There are far too many constantly floating variables that make macro forecasting so difficult. It's not only our economy, it's the economy of every other nation. Currency fluctuations, global bond prices, shifting political sands, taxation, sovereign spending, holy shit, war, commodity prices, on and on.

I agree with you, it would be nice. But when a person on either end of this argument tells you they have The Answer, they're pretty much talking out of their ass.

.

I understand that but the question of Trickle down VS Trickle up should have a much more definitive answer than it does and I believe it would if the trickle down champions were not wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

wealthy people with a vested interest in making regular people believe that their livelihoods depend on the rich being untaxed and untouchable.

Is that why the economy has been so slow?
The rich should be untaxed, but the top 10% pay 68% of Fed income taxes?

When all federal state and local taxes, fees, etc. are added together the working poor pay a large percentage of their income in taxes, no one gets off scot-free except the people who are adept at hiding income as the wealthy are.

When all federal state and local taxes, fees, etc. are added together the working poor pay a large percentage of their income in taxes

How much?

no one gets off scot-free except the people who are adept at hiding income as the wealthy are.

Scot free? But the top 10% pay 68% of all Federal income taxes.
Doesn't sound scot free to me.